


an old and hostile territory

by pathogenesis



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Anxiety, Decepticons aren't very comforting, Frame Dysphoria, Gen, One Shot, Silly, fulcrum's dodgy reformat, weak anthropic principle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:40:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29673648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pathogenesis/pseuds/pathogenesis
Summary: A lot of things were wrong with Fulcrum's frame.
Relationships: Fulcrum & Spinister (Transformers)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	an old and hostile territory

A lot of things were wrong with Fulcrum's frame.

It was unfamiliar. He had odd aches and made strange knocking sounds that he couldn't trace to a source, and he could hardly tell if any given sensation was meaningful.

Fulcrum's frame had been made to blow up well, but not really to _feel_ well. He found himself fretting constantly over questions like: was that stabbing pain in his tank after he took fuel just the random aches of a poorly adapted frame, reengineered on the cheap? Or was he about to break down entirely? Or had Spinister missed something? Was he going to blow up and kill them all? 

Fulcrum didn't know. He couldn't say. His frame was hostile territory, contested and blighted. Each day it felt new and strange and terrifying.

Most of the time, neither could Spinster. 

"With most frames," Spinster said, flat and dull, while Fulcrum watched him effortlessly joint the grey body of a light-armoured speedster, sprawled out on his table, "the smallest thing going wrong can—" he twisted his huge arms, some cable deep inside went _snap_ , and Fulcrum twitched "—break 'em. It's kind of weird that anyone functions at all, when you think about it..." 

This was not the comfort Spinster seemed to anticipate, since it seemed to suggest not just that Fulcrum could expire at any moment, but that also _everyone on the ship_ could expire at any moment.

And then Fulcrum would be all alone, drifting through space on the Weak Anthropic Principle, with only the offline frames of the others for company, and who even knew when, or if, he'd make it back to Cybertron—

Mortal dread descended upon him, so fast and overwhelming that the sensation was almost physically crushing.

"Are you dying," Spinster said, one huge, fuel-spattered hand reaching for him.

" _I don't know_ ," said Fulcrum, aggrieved, fans running fast.

He was not dying, as it happened, but he _was_ having a panic attack.

"You can do that in your room, probably," Spinster let him know.

Fulcrum shared with Misfire and wasn't sure he could, actually.

Spinister went back to the dead speedster.

He had his hand buried in the broken chassis, and while Fulcrum watched—feeling his tank churn as it sent incomprehensible pain signals—he twisted his wrist. There was a second hideous crunch, and he pulled out the mech's fuel pump for inspection. He wasn't as delicate about it as Misfire had been. Half-congealed energon leaked, thick and sticky, down his hand.

Fulcrum wondered if his own energon was like that, after sitting still and cold in his frame for so long.

He didn't wonder enough to check, but the thought was... The smell of energon rot bloomed in the air of the ramshackle repair bay. 

Fulcrum's panic cooled to an anxious simmer, but his fuel tank didn't settle. It twinged instead, and Fulcrum thought about a trigger, somewhere deep in his body—

Watching Spinister separate the corpse for parts didn't help. Especially not when he got startled by a friction spark and shot it twice in the chest.

Fulcrum turned away rapidly after that, and marched right back out of their slapdash repair bay. Perhaps he could just have his panic attack in his and Misfire's room, after all. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading :) leave me a comment if you'd like to


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